


Fresh Fallen Snow

by Quaxo



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Light Angst, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 11:01:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8888362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quaxo/pseuds/Quaxo
Summary: The snow gradually stops, leaving the world clean and new again as far as the eye can see. When the unexpected happens in the middle of a mission, Gaby makes the tough call and tries to live with the consequences.Happy holidays Hibou_Gris!





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hibou_Gris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hibou_Gris/gifts).



At first she doesn’t know what wakes her -- which is not unusual for her admittedly, not with her insomnia. The old chalet they’ve been using as a base to work out of is quieter than normal, however, and combined with the bone-deep ache that’s developed in her left knee can mean only one thing…

She slips out of the bed, wincing as the cool air in the room penetrates her flannel pyjamas and causes her skin to prickle. The fire in the pot-belly stove in the corner of the room has cooled -- she’ll need to get more firewood to feed it. 

She looks back at the bed she’s just abandoned -- Illya in the center, lying on his back just as she remembers before she closed her eyes. Illya is as still as a corpse when he sleeps, unlike Napoleon or her. Gaby’s insomnia has her getting in and out of bed all night long, which is why they’d all agreed after a few disastrous nights that she should sleep on the outside. Napoleon takes the other side, because if he’s let anywhere near the middle then much like his namesake he takes over the whole bed. At least with the Russian neutral zone between them Gaby probably won’t be stripped of her blankets and kicked out of bed at three in the morning any more. Napoleon is currently sprawled halfway on top of Illya, arms and legs entangled with the taller man, drooling ever so slightly onto Illya’s chest. 

Their bed is warm and she’s tempted to crawl back under the down duvet and join them -- but it’s been ages since she’s been able to just watch the snowfall quietly, instead of scanning the horizon for enemies. Plus, she thinks as she pulls on Illya’s sweater and slips her feet into Napoleon’s heavy winter boots -- they need firewood.

As quietly as she can (which is almost impossible in this creaky wooden cabin, but she is a spy), she slips outside. The air is crisp and clean, and she spends several long minutes with her eyes closed, just breathing in the fresh air. 

She opens her eyes slowly to a curtain of tiny white snowflakes descending from the sky. The dirty gray of the churned up snow on the ground is becoming fainter, obscuring the past in a robe of shimmering white. The newest snowfall has encouraged the forest animals to stay in their dens this morning. 

The world is silent for her in a way that it hasn’t been in a long time -- before Rome… perhaps even before Waverly came to visit her for the first time -- in her dressing room, back when she still danced. Her mind had whirled for weeks after his recruitment pitch -- finally, work with meaning -- with equal parts terror and excitement. She hardly slept, but still showed up diligently for rehearsals each morning and performances every night -- wouldn’t want the Stasi to start asking questions if she changed her routines. 

The distraction eventually caught up with her -- Her left knee throbs in remembered agony -- she’d taken a hard fall during practice only weeks after Waverly’s visit, wrenching her knee hard enough to tear one of the ligaments and effectively ending her dancing career.

The other girls had cried for her -- cried for themselves as well, knowing that it could be any of them next. Gaby, though, had been quietly relieved. The knee had been bothering her for ages, but she ignored the pain just like she ignored the agony in her toes, in her ankles, and in her hips. The pain had robbed all of the joy she got from performing -- but she’d been too much of a coward to just walk away from what could likely be her one shot to escape the iron curtain...

Now, three years later, she’s in a tiny Swiss chalet, playing snow bunny with her “fiancé” and her “cousin”, while tracking the movements of Nazi gold over the mountains with an American and a Russian… The girl she was would have hardly believed all the things she’s seen… the things she’s done...

“Penny for your thoughts, Teller.”

“Schieße!” She stumbles back against the woodpile, grabbing one of the split logs, turning to glare as she catches her breath. Napoleon leans indolently against the side of the cabin, his silk dressing gown clashing horribly with the oversized boots he’s purloined from Illya. He casually lights the cigarette dangling from his lips with his favorite silver lighter -- some souvenir from his days in the army, she believes. “I think I should put a bell on you…”

“Well, it would make breaking into places more of a challenge,” Napoleon chuckles, then takes a drag of his cigarette before offering it up to Gaby. She takes it delicately -- she quit smoking (for the most part) the same time she quit dancing, and Marlboros were never her favorite. She takes a puff to soothe her jangled nerves, coughing only slightly before she passes the cigarette back to him. 

They stand there in a companionable silence, sharing a cigarette, watching the snowflakes grow larger -- this, she remembers from childhood spent hoping for school to be cancelled, means the snow will stop soon. 

“I think we forget, Peril and I, that you’re not like us…” 

“Because I’m not a man or because I’m not two meters tall?”

Napoleon shoots her a wry look as he crushes the cigarette butt out in the snow. 

“Because no one taught you how to kill,” he says, as he lights up another cigarette.

Her core trembles at his words and her eyes lock unwillingly with the rapidly disappearing muddied snow in front of her. If she looks hard enough she thinks she can still see the flecks of blood in there, even though she knows Napoleon hid all of it -- 

She’d come back to the chalet to grab more batteries for their transistor radio when she’d spotted the man -- one of the men they’d been watching, circling their chalet suspiciously. She recognized him as one of the grunts tasked with actually carrying the gold over the mountains by ski… he was of little consequence to them, a hired goon who only did what he was told and supposedly knew better than to ask questions…

A hired goon who was far from where he should be this time of day, and far too close to their base of operations. The sunlight catches on the scope of the rifle he has strapped across his back. 

Later, she’ll wonder if she couldn’t have just talked to him, fed him her cover story about a Christmas getaway -- and perhaps if Napoleon and Illya had been close by instead of huddled inside a blind almost two kilometers away she would of -- but all she can see is a man with a gun in a place he doesn’t belong. 

She pulls the pistol from inside her jacket and fires one shot to the head before he even sees her. It’s not the first time she’s shot someone -- not the first time she’s killed either -- but it’s the first time she’s done it in broad daylight, with cold calculation instead of panicked self-defense. 

The snow makes the blood spatter stand out in stark relief and mein Gott she hadn’t realized how messy it could be. 

Illya and Napoleon hear her shot, of course, and both abandon the watch to investigate -- of course. She curses them out between dry heaves, certain that they’ll miss Bischoffhausen making the exchange that they’ve been waiting nine days for. Napoleon wraps her in a blanket and forces her to sit while Illya quietly loads the corpse into the toboggan they’ve been using to haul goods up to the chalet from the hamlet nearby and disappears into the woods. 

Illya returned just as the sun is setting and Gaby has regained most of her composure. Napoleon had hidden what evidence remained in the snow with mud, grass, and wood chips. She had been expecting to be chastised for killing the man, for the loss of information, for potentially blowing their cover -- but Napoleon and Illya don’t seem to have much to say to her or each other. They all make an early night of it for once, even though Gaby knew she’d barely sleep...

“Does it make it easier?”

“Not really, no.”

A bitter chuckle escapes her lips, “Then what’s the point?”

“So you know what to tell yourself so that you can sleep at night.”

“I don’t… it was necessary,” She says after a long moment, her words shakier than she’d like. “He was in the wrong place, and he would have blown our cover. I didn’t want to -- if there’d been a different option I’d have taken it, but there wasn’t…”

“You did what you had to, Teller. Illya or I would have done the same.”

“What I hate most is that I don’t feel bad about it -- I feel like I should, but I don’t,” She exhales slowly. “What kind of person does that make me?”

“If you figure that out, let me know.” 

They say nothing after that, passing the cigarette back and forth for a long while until the filter smolders against Gaby’s fingers and she drops it to the ground. The snow gradually stops, leaving the world clean and new again as far as the eye can see. 

“There are two of you outside and yet no firewood inside,” Illya grumbles, poking his head out the door, eyes squinted against the brightness of the snow. 

“Go get it yourself, Peril,” Napoleon smirks, pulling himself upright. 

“I would, but someone stole my boots,” Illya fills the doorway, blocking their path back inside. 

The sound of the two men bickering like children (or an old married couple) is comforting, for once -- at least for the first few minutes. Eventually she shoves a stack of logs into Napoleon’s arms taking another armful for herself to get back inside. With the snow finished and the clouds parting the temperature is starting to drop again and it’s too damn cold to be standing outside when they could be inside and warm.

It’s not long before Illya’s got the fire going again, but it will take awhile for the room to warm up to a comfortable temperature again -- until then they’ll stay curled next to each other, sharing each other’s warmth underneath the covers.


End file.
